Thursday, February 10, 2011

Report Of The Decay Of The Hard Pro-Knox Party Line In West Seattle

[Images by pq above and below: former storefront offices that were the headquarters of the West Seattle Herald]

The Seattle Salmon reports with some amusement on how the residents are increasingly speaking out.

They whisper at the local library branch, nod to each other in line at the Morgan Junction Starbucks, and even occasionally email their true feelings to each other. What is this secret society? It’s not the Masons, Scientologists or even the wily Northwestern Republicans.

No, this fearful group is West Seattleites who think Amanda Knox did it. By “it,” they are referring to the 2007 murder in Italy of which she was convicted. Knox was raised in West Seattle and the community has rallied around her claim of innocence with a fervor that straddles the militant/cult divide.

But some in the community are not so sure and not so talkative about their doubt. One resident who demanded anonymity told the Seattle Salmon, “It’s like a police state out here. You have to go to the legal defense fundraisers – like six last year – or else you are ostracized at the Westcrest Off-leash area.”

Another said, “The groupthink is terrifying. You step outside of it and you’re like the stupid Regular Seattleite who jaywalks through the all-way crosswalk at The Junction – you’re all alone and danger could come at you from any direction. Plus they’d light your ass up on the West Seattle Blog. You’d have to move.”

Perhaps no surprises there. It has been a long time since pro-Steve-Shay comments on the West Seattle Herald have been in the majority. Yesterday he made this ludicrous claim.

Meredith’s father, John, who believes Knox is guilty and has a lawyer in the courtroom fighting to insure she and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito remain in jail.

These were the first two responses.

John Kercher’s lawyer is not ‘fighting’ anyone or anything. He has a legal duty to provide representation at the automatic appeal which Italy’s very liberal criminal justice system provides to all convicted criminals.

Your inflammatory, arrogant coverage of this legal process stinks. The US State Department doesn’t think there was anything wrong with the year-long legal process which convicted Knox and Sollecito of torture and murder, and neither do their victim’s family. Again, this doesn’t mean they are ‘fighting’, so grow up.

Mr. Shay atypically made only one glaring distortion in this article; The Kercher family lawyer is involved in the appeals process not to insure that Ms. Knox stay in jail, but rather to make sure the prosecution’s case is presented fairly and objectively, as was certainly done in the court’s verdict.

Not to make the lawyer sound one sided and intent on a path; there are way too many like Shay in the pro innocent Knox camp; this population has been known to lie and distort facts so as to exculpate their darling “West Seattle bred” Knox.

Steve Shay and his paper, the West Seattle Herald, (AKA The Edda and Amanda Forever Cheerleader’s Newsletter) are becoming so delusional and out of touch even with Amanda’s Hometown readers that it is little more a pathetic pimple on the face of reality (operating out of a low rent shack).

For example, anti Knox reader sentiment for Shay’s latest ‘article’ was over 50 to 1 against Shay in the comments section.

His out of touch response to one anti knox reader illustrates my point.

Reader commented:
Shay, we all realize why you have to be such a childish cheerleader for Mellas and the product of his failed parentage stepdaughter.

But when you see so many contrary comments and distinct disapprovals in the comment section (before you delete them) can’t you just somehow begin to see your readers are a lot more realistic, unbiased, and unattached to Mellas than you are ??

Don’t they deserve better ???
32 people liked this.

Steve Shay [Moderator] 13 hours ago in reply:

For every comment posted we get hundreds of readers. If we receive 100 comments by those who find Amanda guilty, and 50 by those who find Amanda innocent, that is not an accurate barometer of public sentiment.

For information: The West Seattle Herald shut down this storefront office over a year ago; I assume it was to cut costs. The premises have housed a bakery ever since. I think your photo legend should be changed to reflect this fact. Also, it is being claimed elsewhere that I took this photo. For the record, I did not take this photo and have never taken a photo of the former WS Herald storefront office.
Peggy Ganong

This is true. I took the shots in October 2009 while I was cruising West Seattle - which by the way I definitely rather liked. I was quite amused at the diminutive storefront I came across and even more-so when I looked at the tiny inside.

We went up against the Seattle PI in our early days at TJMK and next thing to our shock the paper edition folded. Maybe we had zero influence on that but we have never posted much on the WSH in part for that reason - the paper media deserve breaks if they can get it right.

Our only full post on WSH ever was two years ago on Steve Shay’s jubilant sliming of Mignini - which of course attracted a lawsuit to the paper. Any news on that?

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